August 2012

08/31/2012

Eastwooding

If nothing else, the Republican Convention has sparked a new
internet craze called Eastwooding. Inspired
by Clint Eastwood's talk with an empty chair at the RNC, people in droves are
posting photos themselves talking to empty chairs. There's even a Facebook page, a Twitter
account (@Eastwooding) and a hashtag (#Eastwooding), many Eastwooding tags on
Tumblr and photos on Instagram.
Eastwooding is the new Tebowing.

Mitt Romney, Clint Eastwood and Robin Roberts

Good morning!

Two big trends coming out of the final night of the
Republican National Convention. Mitt
Romney began his closing argument with a speech that unified Republicans and
attempted to sway Independents and disgruntled Democrats to vote for change. "President
Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your
family," Romney told the energized crowd.

He told considerable detail about his own personal story and laid out
with far fewer details a 5-point plan to create 12-million new jobs in
America. Romney spent a lot of time
talking about the President, blaming the economic woes on Obama's background in
government compared to his own business background. He also linked President Obama to the last
one-term Democrat, Jimmy Carter, by borrowing a line from Ronald Reagan's
playbook, "This president cannot tell us that you are better off today
than when he took office." The speech
drew mixed reaction on social media sites with Republicans cheering, Democrats
criticizing and undecided still appearing undecided.

Here are some of the
messages that we received on Facebook:

Harold Sharpe I believe he
knows what he is doing unlike what we have, unfortunately. I think Obama is in
over his head and just doesn't have what it takes. I think someone should have
replaced him.

Corrine Ristaino McGrath Promises,
promises . He looks and sound so fake right down to the jet black hair. I don't
trust him or Lyen Ryan.

Richard Castro Romney did
great! I love how he stood for his faith and beliefs! It's so sad how people are
so blinded by a past leader that their put anybody into office who lacks any
experience and refuse to admit that they put the wrong man in charge for the
last 3 1/2 years. The definition of stupid is repeating the same mistake over
and over. America, let's not be stupid about this decision. USA!

Joan Johnson I was not
satisfied at all, I know Obama speech is going to put Romney to shame, I can't
wait.

Roseanne Spataro Scandariato Nothing has
changed in 4 years. If you can't get the job done, then it's time to hire some
one else to do it! If I didn't do my job right I would get fired. So for me I
have not seen results in 4 years, maybe it's time for change!

Dale In-Sales HORRIBLE !!
Romney will try to steal the election somehow, there is nobody in their right
mind that would vote for Romney unless they are a greedy white billionaire who
takes rights & equal pay away from women & sends jobs overseas.

The other trending topic out of last night's
convention is Clint Eastwood. The
82-year-old Hollywood icon gave an interesting speech that some say electrified
the crowd, while others described it as bizarre as Eastwood talked to a chair
described as Invisible Obama.

The
moment inspired a Twitter account, @InvisibleObama that by early this morning
had more than 38,000 followers.
President Obama's team also tweeted out a picture with the caption
"That seat is taken."

The Democrats hold their convention in Charlotte,
North Carolina beginning next Tuesday.

Robin Roberts is trending this morning after word
that the Good Morning America co-anchor's mother passed away overnight. Roberts began her medical leave from a bone
marrow transplant a day early so she could visit her ailing mother. ABC News reports that Roberts made it
"home to Mississippi just in time to see her." Lucimarian Roberts was 88. She was the first African-American to head
Mississippi's board of education. She also collaborated with her daughter on a
book titled, "My Story, My Song — Mother-Daughter Reflections on Life and
Faith

Country
music star LeAnn Rimes has sued two women who she claimed illegally recorded a
conversation with her and posted it online.
Rimes claims that Kimberly Smiley and her daughter
Lexi Smiley secretly recorded a telephone conversation "to spitefully
ensure that out-of-context excerpts of that recording would be disseminated to
the public on various websites" and to portray Rimes "in an
egregiously false and negative light and cause her emotional
distress." The Smileys were
supporters of the ex-wife of Rimes' husband, Eddie Cibrian. For her part, Kimberly Smily admits making
the recording, but denies that she did anything wrong. "It's just a celebrity who's too full of
herself," she said. In California,
it's illegal to record someone without their knowledge.

A blue
moon will grace the skies today. No, the
moon will not appear blue. It is the
second full moon of August, and that's why it's called blue moon. The two full moons will not rise in a single
month again until July 2015.

From the
viral video pool, Darth Vader may have met his match in a dog,

Next, a
dramatic interpretation of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" as it
might be performed by actor Sir Ian McKellen.

Fantasy
footballers now have their own parody of Call Me Maybe as "Adrian
Peterson" makes the case in Draft Me Maybe.

I wouldn't
have believed it unless I saw it. A bird
uses bread to catch a fish.

Then we
have an epic unloading fail.

And
finally, how to recover from a fail (note: contains some foul language.)

08/30/2012

Ryan, Rice and White House Beer

Good morning!

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan and former
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are hot topics this morning following last
night's convention. Ryan won rousing
standing ovations from the faithful as he made the case for smaller government
and a better day ahead. While
supporters cheered, fact checkers challenged many of Ryan's assertions. That GM factory in Ryan's home state of
Wisconsin actually closed before Obama became president.

(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Some of Ryan's biggest cheers came during
his attacks on President Obama.
"College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their
childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they
can move out and get going with life," he said.

Ryan had a tough act to follow in Condoleezza
Rice. She may have set the stage for a
future presidential bid with one of the most highly marked speeches of the
convention so far. Rice touched on key
policy issues, but also drew upon personal reflection. "And on a personal
note: A little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham - the most segregated big
city in America. Her parents can't take
her to a movie theater or a restaurant, but they make her believe that even
though she can't have a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter, she can be
President of the United States. And she becomes the Secretary of State,"
she said.

The convention wraps up tonight with the man of the
hour, Mitt Romney formally accepting the Republican nomination for
president. You can see the speech live
on Channel 7 and on 7online.

While Republicans may have the spotlight, but
President Obama is still getting the buzz on Twitter. A hot topic is his Ask Me Anything session
on Reddit, a popular social news site.
He only answered ten questions, mostly soft ball questions but that is not
unusual for any candidate in this sort of format. The site was also overwhelmed with traffic once
word got out. One of the questions, when
will the White House beer recipe be released?
"It will be out soon! I can
tell from first hand experience, it is tasty," the President responded.

Pete Souza/The White House

Another trending topic on Yahoo! is an incident in
which an African-American camerawoman for CNN was allegedly assaulted at the
Republican Convention. According to
reports, a man threw peanuts at the woman and yelled, "This is how we feed
animals." The man was escorted out
of the convention. CNN later issued a
statement confirming the incident, adding it "worked with convention officials
to address this matter and will have no further comment."

Meanwhile, another African-American, rising
Republican star Mia Love, fell victim to an online assault. Someone hacked her Wikipedia page with
racist and sexist epithets. Love, who
is Brooklyn-born and now a mayor in Utah, delivered a brief speech at the
convention on Tuesday night. Most of
the changes to her Wikipedia are too inflammatory to repeat her, but one of the
tamer changes accused her of being a "sell-out" to the "right
wing hate machine." The hacks have
since been removed.

And then there's the author who wants 25-grand from
Mitt Romney. Judith Freeman writes in
The Los Angeles Review of Books that in the 1880s her great grandfather William
Flake paid to bail out Miles Romney on polygamy charges. Miles and his three wives then skipped out
of town, she writes, and left Flake "holding the bag." He wound up spending six months in prison. Freeman writes, "Mitt Romney seems to have sufficient
funds now to cover his ancestor's old debt, I'd like to call upon him to do so.
I've done some calculation, and $1,000 from the 1880s would today be worth
about $25,000, not counting interest (and since I'm not a smart enough to
figure up the interest, I'm willing to let that part slide). No
comment from the Romney camp.

A crazy fight was caught on camera in Times
Square. The two men went at it with
crutches and road block signs.

In Spain, the annual tomato fight has become a viral
sensation.

Not sure where this one took place, but it sure
looks like fun. It's called shooting the
tube!

08/29/2012

RNC, Kelsey Grammer and Motorcycle Man

Good morning!

The Republican National Convention is the hot topic as
Mitt Romney gained a historic nomination for President, becoming the first
Mormon to ever be a party's choice for president. While Romney had his crowning moment, his
wife, Ann, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had the spotlight. Ann Romney made a clear appeal to women, a
group that has not rallied to her husband's campaign. "I love you women! And I hear your voices," she said. "You are the best of America." Romney painted her story as one not of a
fairytale, but "a real marriage" that included five boys and
struggles with MS and breast cancer.
She received her biggest ovation when she said of her husband, "No
one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country a better
place to live."

Governor Christie delivered the night-ending keynote
address, usually sharp on attacks on the opponent. But Christie avoid mentioning President
Obama by name, and spent a long time talking about his own life and record as
governor. He capped the speech by
labeling "Mr. President" as a poll-driven leaderless politician. "I'm here to tell you tonight that it is
time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real
leaders to the White House. America
needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we need them right now," he said.

Both speeches drew immediate reaction on Facebook
and Twitter. Here is a sampling from
Twitter:

Lots of tweeting about New Orleans and Louisiana
this morning as Hurricane Isaac hammers the region on the same day that Katrina
did her damage seven years ago. Isaac is
no Katrina, but the storm is still causing flooding and damage along the Gulf
Coast.

Kelsey Grammer is trending after he
and his fourth wife Kayte Walsh sat down for an interview with Oprah about
Kayte's role in the end of the actor's 13-year marriage to Camille
Grammer. The couple's divorce played
out on the Bravo series "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," where
Camille accused Kelsey of cheating on her.
He was, with Kayte. They're now
married with a baby. As for Camille,
Kelsey said she always wanted to be
famous and was angry because she had given up so much to be with him.

Someone has stolen Dr. Phil's '57
Chevy. According to TMZ, Phil and a
friend were working on the classic car, but could not get it started. So, they stuck it on a flatbed to a repair
shop in Burbank. Several hours later,
word came that someone stole the vehicle valued at $100,000.

The
childhood home of Muhammad Ali is up for sale.
The owner is asking $50,000 for the small white house in western
Louisville where the boxing legend grew up as Cassius Clay. A state historical marker sits outside the
house, recognizing that Ali once lived there with his parents and brother.

08/28/2012

New Orleans, Conventions and The Howling

Good morning!

Two big stories are trending this morning: Isaac and the Republican National
Convention. First, Isaac is bearing
down on New Orleans and a stretch of the Gulf Coast, and even though it's
approaching on the eve of the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it's not
anywhere near as big of a storm. Isaac
will pack a punch, though, and many are tweeting prayers and good wishes using
the keyword "New Orleans" and the hastag #Isaac. Our Jim Dolan is there too, and not only can
you see his reports on Eyewitness News, but you can also follow his tweets
@JimDolan7.

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus gavels the
Republican National Convention open in Tampa, Fla., on Monday, Aug. 27,
2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The rain delayed Republican National Convention
begins tonight in Tampa. Bill Ritter
(@BillRitter7) and Dave Evans (DaveEvansABC7) are covering the RNC for
Eyewitness News, and we'll have live continuous coverage on 7online beginning
at 7:00 p.m. You can follow convention
updates from ABC News and Eyewitness News using the hashtag #2012GOP on
Twitter.

Since April 2011, when Mitt Romney officially
entered the race, YouTube reports that close to 600,000 videos mentioning Obama
or Romney have been uploaded to YouTube, and these videos account for close to 2
BILLION views. The latest video from
Obama has a half-million views in just over a day.

Since Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running
mate, he has seen a surge in both YouTube channel subscribers (a 300% increase
since the Ryan announcement) and video views. Their first video together,
“America’s Comeback Team” has racked up over 1.1 million views in two weeks.

Are the Foo Fighters done as a band? That's what people have been searching to
find out after the Foo Fighters closed out the Reading Festival in Leeds over
the weekend. According to frontman David
Grohl, the concert was the last for the foreseeable future. "You guys realize we've got a lot of
songs to play. It's the last show of the
tour and it's the last show for a long time," he told the crowd. The performance came 20 years after
Nirvana's last show in England, and Grohl gave a shout out to former Nirvana
mates Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain before launching into These Days. The band is playing a few more dates in
September in the states, but that could mark the end of the road for the Foo
Fighters. The ban won five Grammys for
Wasting Light this year.

It was Kill Bill Monday on Twitter. First, Bill Nye, who had a viral video over
the weekend, became the target of a death hoax with thousands of RIP tweets for
the not yet departed children's show science guy. Then, Bill Cosby's premature death became the
second Kill Bill trend of the day on Monday evening. The long-time comedian is still alive. It's also not his first brush with Twitter
death. In 2010, he was killed so many
times that he told CNN, "I don't want to do this anymore, because this is
my fourth time being reported (dead)."
Long live the Bills.

Rosie O'Donnell is trending again thanks to word
that she tied the knot in private with her girlfriend Michelle Rounds in
June. Rosie blogged that they were
going to hold a public ceremony on August 14, the same day that she suffered a
heart attack. The wedding had already
been postponed because of Rounds illness.
She suffers from desmoid tumors, a rare, cancer-like disease. Rosie, 50, writes that the couple will
eventually hold a ceremony for family and friends to attend.

Ellen DeGeneres may have a future as a real estate
agent. According to Us Magazine,
DeGeneres flipped Brad Pitt's house for $13-million, netting a $1-million
profit. DeGeneres and her partner,
Portia de Rossi, purchased the Malibu home from Pitt and Angelina Jolie about a
year ago. After a few renovations, the
house and its 4,000 square feet of living space overlooking the ocean went back
on the market. DeGeneres sold it to a
cosmetics entrepreneur. Not too long
ago, DeGeneres and de Rossi sold their Beverly Hills home to American Idol host
Ryan Seacrest for a whopping $37.5 million.

08/27/2012

Snooki, Isaac and The Best Joke Ever

Good morning!

While Republicans gathered in Florida, a tropical storm
threatened the Gulf Coast and earthquakes shook the left coast, the social
world was buzzing about Snooki. Nicole
Polizzi gave birth to a baby boy -- or as her rep put it "another
Guido" - on Sunday morning.

Lorenzo Dominic LaValle weighed in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces. The 24-year-old Jersey Shore star hopped on
Twitter to share the news, "I am SO IN LOVE with my son Lorenzo
Dominic. I had my little man last night,
healthy at 6lbs! HE'S MY WORLD!"

All eyes of the Gulf Coast are watching Isaac as the
tropical storm intensifies, likely to a Cat 2 hurricane, as he approaches. The storm appears to be headed for New
Orleans on the eve of the 7th anniversary of Katrina. That hurricane was stronger, but Isaac will
still be a serious threat for the city because of the potential for a strong
storm surge. Hurricane warnings are in
effect from east of Morgan City, Louisiana to Destin, Florida. A state of emergency has been declared in
Louisiana, and 53,000 residents of St. Charles Parish have been ordered out
ahead of Isaac's arrival. We'll have
continuing updates on Isaac throughout the day on Eyewitness News. You can follow tweets on the storm under the
hashtag #Isaac.

On the west coast, a series of earthquakes rattled
parts of Southern California on Sunday.
Dozens of small to moderate quakes knocked trailer homes off their
foundations, shattering windows and rattling nerves in a small farming town
east of San Diego. The strongest was a
magnitude 5.5 about three miles northwest of Brawley, California. Geophysicists say the activity could continue
for several days. Earthquake swarms are
characteristic of the region, known as the Brawley Seismic Zone, but it has
been 7 years since the last time a major cluster occurred.

The most searched topic over the weekend was Neil
Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
He died on Saturday at age 82.

(AP Photo/file)

He largely stayed out of the public eye after that monumental moment 43
summers ago in July 1969. Armstrong
became a teacher at the University of Cincinnati and sat on various boards
after leaving NASA, but he rarely gave interviews or autographs. He probably could have run for President,
but Armstrong chose a course outside of the limelight.

Call Me Maybe singer Carly Rae Jepsen has revealed
her boyfriend - singer-songwriter Matthew Koma. She told People magazine during an
appearance at the U.S. Open's annual Arthur Ashe Kids Day over the weekend that
"He's a really great guy and really talented."

Rihanna may be looking for a new boyfriend in Robert
Pattinson, according to OK! Magazine.
The report cites a source that she has been sending him "sexy,
funny texts" to cheer him up after
his girlfriend Kristen Stewart was caught lip-locked with director Rupert
Sanders. Rihanna may have her work cut
out for her, though. According to the
source, Pattinson has been "resisting her."

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the iconic
"Circle 7" logo that Channel 7 viewers have come to know. The
"Circle 7" logo was unveiled by our sister station KGO-TV on August
27, 1962. G. Dean Smith of San Francisco
designed the logo. It would be used by
ABC stations in New York, Chicago,
Detroit and Los Angeles in the years that followed.

"The Science Guy" Bill Nye is trending on YouTube and sparking a
social discussion after warning parents not to teach creationism to their
children because it does a disservice to them and the U.S.

Speaking of science, video of a two-faced cat named
Venus has been buzzing this weekend…

And finally, two unfunny guys have a tremendously
viral video with the best joke ever.

08/24/2012

Lance Armstrong, Facebook Apps and Canoodling

Good morning!

It's a sad day in the
sports world. Lance Armstrong survived
testicular cancer, persevered to conquer the most difficult bicycle races in
the world, but the 40-year-old has decided to stop fighting allegations that he
used banned substances to boost performance during his career. "There comes a point in every man's life
when he has to say, 'Enough is enough.'
For me, that time is now," Armstrong said in a statement.

The decision means the U.S. Anti-Doping
Agency will ban Armstrong for life and recommend that he be stripped of his
record 7 Tour de France titles.
"This is a heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all-costs
culture of sport, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition,"
Travis Tygart, chief executive of the USADA, said.

Armstrong's decision
also sparked a flurry of reaction on Twitter, although the top tweets are not
what you might expect… @KCTodayfm tweets
"So what if Lance Armstrong took
drugs,he was the first man on the moon & they can never take that away from
u Lancey baby #lancearmstrong."…. And
@BorowitzReport adds, "By far, Lance Armstrong's darkest legacy will be
that he convinced millions of men it was okay to wear bike shorts."… and
finally, this tweet from @colin_dunlap, "The only banned substances Lance
Armstrong has truly been found guilty of using in France are soap and
deodorant."

A very rare immune
disease found in Asia is a hot topic on Yahoo! this morning. The disease causes AIDS-like symptoms, but
it is not associated with HIV, researchers at the National Institutes of Health
said. The disease is also not
contagious. The findings, released in
the New England Journal of Medicine, found patients were making antibodies that
attacked their immune systems, but it is unclear why it is happening. Cases are extremely rare - only about a dozen
reported since 2004.

Facebook has rolled out its
faster iPhone and iPad app. The app was
re-built to offer a much better experience for Facebook users on iOS. I've downloaded both apps and can say for
sure that Facebook has dramatically improved the experience. You can read more about the changes at
Mashable.com.

Justin Bieber now has more than
27 million followers on Twitter. Long
live the Beliebers, as they say.

Another wingsuit man
has taken flight with a trending video on YouTube. This time, Alexander Polli
soars over parts of New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland in a wingsuit.

From Earth to Mars,
and NASA's viral video of Curiosity's descent onto the Red Planet.

There's nothing like
a blooper on live television, but this one will be remembered for awhile - and
it's certainly buzzing online now. CTV
news anchor Andrew Johnson tried to make an innocent transition from a story
about a place where couples come to "canoodle" into weather. Well, "canoodle" does not mean
what Johnson apparently thought…

Kayakers in a
California bay got a bit of a surprise from a humpback whale this week as seen
in a video with more than one million views and still going…

Sam Claflin, Dog Shaming and a New York Celebrity

Good morning!

Hunger Games fans are excited to learn that Sam Claflin
has been officially cast in the role of former champion Finnick Odair in The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Claflin, a
24-year-old British actor who appeared most recently in Snow White and the
Huntsman, will star as a previous champion with ravishing good looks and charm
who returns to the arena with other former champions for the 75th annual Hunger
Games.

Based upon Suzanne Collins'
bestseller, Caflin's character in the book meets Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer
Lawrence) wearing nothing but a fishing net with some strategically placed
knots. Should make for an interesting
scene in the movie version, which is set to hit the big screens in November
2013.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been spending this week before
the walls of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Manhattan, reports say. He is learning the banking ropes for the big
screen adaptation of businessman's Jordan Belfort's memoir The Wolf of Wall
Street. Belfort spent a life in banking,
but wound up in jail for money laundering.
DiCaprio teams with director Martin Scorsese for the fifth time to make
the movie. Filming begins this weekend.

Paul Ryan's college sweetheart is the top trend on
Yahoo! The reason: She is African-American. The story started trending after a post on
TheRoot.com by Keli Goff headlined
"Does Paul Ryan's Black Ex-Girlfriend Matter?" The answer is no, but she raises the
question to show the contrasts between the public personas and the personal
lives of politicians and others in the public eye. Ryan's sister-in-law is also an
African-American. Her conclusion is
that when it comes to matters of a particular community, we should look to the
person's public policies not their personal life.

Another hot topic on Yahoo! is the story of a Texas
judge who says his county needs to raise taxes to beef up the police force in
case of a civil war if President Obama gets reelected. Yes, he is serious.

And hurricane is the
buzz word surrounding next week's Republican National Convention as we keep a
close watch on Tropical Storm Isaac.
The worst possible scenario is that Isaac, still hundreds of miles away
from Florida, stays on a western track into the Gulf of Mexico, then curves
east into Tampa. Tampa, like New
Orleans, would be vulnerable to a storm surge that could flood the city. That is the WORST case scenario. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn downplayed any
serious threat to the convention, encouraging everyone to "Come on
down!"

A man's tattoo has sparked a health alert. According to ABC News, the 20-year-old man
received the tattoo in Rochester, New York in October 2011. Shortly thereafter, he noticed a raised
bumpy rash, so he went to the doctor who treated his arm with topical steroids. The problem only got worse. Eventually, he went to see a dermatologist,
who did a skin biopsy and discovered a wormlike bacterium related to
tuberculosis. The discovery helped to
connect the dots in an outbreak of tattoo-related skin infections. The findings were published in the New
England Journal of Medicine.

Dog Shaming is red hot thanks to a new Tumblr. Owners pose their pets behind shaming signs
in photos. Some examples: "I harass small children for food"
and "I sneak out of bed at 5 a.m. to poop on the floor, and then get back
into bed like nothing ever happened" and this one...